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Jim Sterling, a man I do not necessarily agree on and on whom I am still angry at for giving Vanquish a 5 while Killzone 3 got a 10 (I will never forget that!), made a good point over at the Escapist (I assume he is one of the 3 guys that actually get paid there hehe), titled The Beautiful Irony of PC Gaming.

He makes a case for PC gaming being more than 1000 $ rigs, SLI, endless configuration problems and pretty graphics. But best to watch it yourself.

I like my PS3, but there are things that just don't happen on that box (or any home console in general). First of all indies have a better time on the PC than on consoles. PC versions of Cthulhu Saves the World and Super Meat Boy outsold their xbox-counterparts by a mile.

Then there's the modding community, which works on patches for games whose developers had to close (e.g. Bloodlines), updates graphics for new generation of machines and players (e.g. updated graphics for Deus Ex or Freespace 2, tons of mods for old rpg's like Planescape) or even offer completely new experiences (e.g. the Neherim full conversion of Oblivion and let's not forget Counterstrike and DOTA).

Platforms like good old games offer old classics for little money so that they run on new computers without problems. A lot of the best that pc gaming has to offer already runs on a halfway decent laptop.

That said, I don't play games from Ubisoft on my PC anymore since their DRM is stoopid. Why am I treated like a criminal on PC, but everythings fine when I get Assassins Creed 2 on PS3? Also, Games for Windows Live is a sin against humanity and I'm weary about Origin. Looks like Origin is required if I plan on ever playing Battlefield 3 or Mass Effect 3.

I like Jim, even though I don't agree with absolutely everything he says, but he's lost his way with The Jimquisition lately, it's not as good as it was.

Regarding the video, surely the main reason that these indie hits are so popular on the PC (these tend to be the ones with lesser graphics, and so aren't as demanding on your system), is because most people *don't* have super-powerful gaming rigs? I've got a pretty good laptop. It won't run The Witcher 2 or anything, but there are plenty of games which it will run (such as Recetear, Hoard, Minecraft, plenty of non-indie games that are a couple of years old but great all the same), and I love it. Many of these games *wouldn't* make it onto the Xbox 360 or PS3, either.

I agree with his statement that graphics aren't everything, but that should be obvious anyway.